How Genes Shape Your Risk Taking & Morals | Dr. Kathryn Paige Harden
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There is a reward visible in the brain when people see someone suffer if that person is portrayed as a wrongdoer. Normally, seeing someone shocked activates the anterior insula, as if you are being shocked. But if the person violated a moral or social norm, dopamine release occurs, providing reward from seeing them punished. This is a lust, similar to lust for substances or sexual partners—a desire to see people punished.
Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, discussing science and science-based tools for everyday life. Andrew Huberman is a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Guest is Dr. Kathryn Paige Harden, psychologist and geneticist, professor at University of Texas at Austin. She studies how genes shape life trajectories, interacting with adolescent life events to impact long-term mental and physical health.
Discussion covers nature-nurture interplay in addiction, criminality, trauma susceptibility, and themes of sin, sociopathy, empathy, forgiveness. Dr. Harden defines how biology, psychology, and life's randomness drive choices. Topics include male-female differences, hormones, hormone-independent influences, and role assumptions based on power structures. Direct conversation on genes, environment, biology (genes, neurotransmitters, hormones) driving available choices and tendencies.
Dr. Harden researches with exceptional rigor. She is clear, direct, compassionate, believes in self-improvement regardless of genes, and improving the world, all backed by data. New book: Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problems with Blame and the Future of Forgiveness, available for pre-sale anywhere books are sold.
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